Russia’s largest lender Sberbank does not see itself as the future owner of the Antipinsky oil refinery, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, Sberbank deputy board chairman Anatoly Popov said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The refinery, which has a capacity of 9 million tonnes per year, filed for bankruptcy in May after having halted operations on several occasions because of a lack of funds to pay for crude oil deliveries. Sberbank had been its main creditor.

Mallinckrodt Plc has hired restructuring firms and may choose to seek bankruptcy protection, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, sending the drugmaker’s shares down 40% in after-hours trading, Reuters reported. The company has hired law firm Latham & Watkins LLP and consulting firm AlixPartners LLP to advise on the matter, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the situation. Mallinckrodt, which has a market value of about $218 million, declined to comment on the report.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc Chairman Howard Davies shrugged off the prospect of a Labour-led U.K. government re-nationalizing all of the state-backed lender as the chances of an election grow more likely, Bloomberg News reported. Davies said in a Bloomberg Television interview that any Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn would have other things on its mind, saying the nationalization of water utilities and railways seemed more probable.

Germany’s export-dependent economy is suffering from a Brexit shock that along with the rise in global trade tensions and structural changes in the car industry, threatens to push Europe’s economic powerhouse into recession, the Financial Times reported. In the three months to June, exports to Britain dropped 21 per cent quarter on quarter, the biggest fall since the financial crisis a decade ago, contributing to the 0.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter contraction in GDP that Germany experienced in the same period.

Negative-yielding bonds are taking on an ever-greater chunk of the global fixed income universe and are still failing to lift economic activity, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. But the market continues to call for monetary policy easing from the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve. It is not clear why central banks continue to acquiesce. In fairness, for the ECB, the requirement for policy action is clear, given that Germany is teetering on the brink of recession.

It was too good a deal to pass up. Starting more than a decade ago, Poles got the chance to take out mortgages denominated in Swiss francs with interest rates less than half the prevailing level for loans in Polish zloty, Bloomberg News reported. More than a million people jumped at the opportunity. Then in 2015, the Swiss unpegged the franc from the euro and it surged in value, just as the zloty was weakening. Some loans doubled in zloty terms, leaving homeowners struggling to pay. Thousands sued, and a European court ruling expected this year could afford them relief.

Consumer prices in the eurozone rose by 1 per cent in the year to August, unchanged from a month earlier and well below the level targeted by the European Central Bank, the Financial Times reported. The single currency bloc’s central bank targets a level of below, but close to, 2 per cent. Excluding food, energy, alcohol and tobacco — which tend to have relatively volatile prices — the eurozone’s monthly harmonised prices series rose 0.2 per cent in August, the region’s statistics office said on Friday, in line with analysts’ expectations — up from a 0.6 per cent decline in July.

Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct is funding a legal challenge against Debenhams to drive it out of business and “pick up its assets on the cheap”, it was claimed in the High Court on Monday, the Financial Times reported. Sports Direct, founded by billionaire Mr Ashley, is financing a High Court lawsuit brought by six landlords that are challenging restructuring proposals which the UK retailer’s creditors overwhelmingly approved in May after Debenhams was bought out of administration by its lenders.

The UK government will hold an emergency meeting with senior bankers in Westminster next Thursday to try to co-ordinate plans to limit the impact of a no-deal Brexit on small businesses, the Financial Times reported. Andrea Leadsom, the business secretary, Michael Gove, the minister in charge of no-deal preparations, and City minister John Glen are all expected to attend, along with executives from the country’s largest business lenders and industry group UK Finance, according to multiple people briefed on the meeting.

Hedge funds and private-equity firms are signing up European distressed-debt experts at the fastest pace in at least five years as slowing growth drives up corporate defaults in the region, Bloomberg News reported. Investment firms hired 29 new analysts, traders and money managers specializing in distressed situations during the first half of the year on a net basis, according to a report by headhunters Paragon Search Partners. That compares to 20 over the same period in 2018 and a net loss of two the year before.